THE ECONOMY ATE MY HOMEWORK

Our depressing economic climate apparently has a silver lining. According to a story in the Style section of Sunday’s New York Times, the economic meltdown gives us a great excuse to do things – or not to do things – without being authentic about it.

Why be straight with the nanny who isn’t working out when you can use the economy as an excuse to dump her and hire a more palatable replacement a few days later? “It’s the silver lining in the recession,” raves the duplicitous woman who preferred lying to the nanny over delivering honest feedback on her substandard job performance. “In fact, it came in quite handy.”

The economy also came to the rescue of a runner who didn’t want to be straight with her coach, who was prodding her to run an ultra-marathon in Canada’s Arctic Circle. She founded it more convenient to dissemble, (“I just can’t afford it”) than to be honest about the real reason, (“It’s too cold and uncomfortable for me to race in that climate.”)

The article uses all the euphemisms to soften the hard edges of deceit: fibbing, white lies, masking the truth. But it’s all about an inability to be direct and authentic in the moment of a difficult conversation.

What other global crises give us a “silver lining” that lets us off the hook for being authentic? Global warming? Nuclear proliferation? A pandemic disease or a terrorist threat? The assumptions of the people quoted in this article -- that crisis gives us a pass on having authentic conversations with each other -- is deeply troubling.

 MAREN

SURVEY SAYS: WE CAN'T TELL THE TRUTH

Browsing the Internet today brought up this interesting blog, The Organizational Attitude Survey by Scorecard Metrics for HR, which attempts to sell the benefits of organizational attitude surveys. The author’s message illustrates a fundamental organizational problem that many enterprises encounter, and one that an attitude survey can’t solve.

In organizations with a hierarchal, parent-child culture, telling the truth feels risky – even dangerous.  Consider how a survey exacerbates this very problem. Most organizational attitude surveys are:

• Commissioned by those at the top or their agents (Human Resources)


• Designed so respondents can remain anonymous


• Tabulated and administered by agencies outside the organization to ensure impartiality


• An opportunity for people to say anything they choose without having to be accountable for their statements


• Supported by the belief that senior management will act on the results


• In some cases designed so survey takers don’t see the results

These types of surveys create the expectation that it’s management’s job to fix the organizational problems and employees are off the hook for resolving serious organizational issues.

Having worked with many HR departments over our 25-year history, we have collected a number of organizational attitude surveys, from diverse industries and from large and small companies. They are all eerily similar, and produce nearly identical results:

• Supervisors don’t give them enough information.


• They feel like they could make a greater contribution


• Teamwork needs to be improved


• Supervisors are below average in showing how much they care


• People are not satisfied with the amount they are paid


• Nothing much has changed in the 2 years since the last survey

HR’s fundamental expertise is organizing human effort to do productive and meaningful work. If HR specialists directed more of their expertise to helping the organization create adult cultures, where people can tell the truth without fear of recrimination, attitude surveys would become unnecessary. 

MAREN & JAMIE

TO THE MOON, MANAGERS

Although we are subscribers, I typically don’t spend a lot of time with the Harvard Business Review for many reasons not worth going into here. However, in the February issue, Gary Hamel penned an article titled Moon Shots for Management that is worth the time investment. 

Hamel, a thought leader for global business strategies, leadership and management, is among 35 CEOs, consultants, academics, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists branded the “renegade brigade.” For this article, they asked themselves two questions:

• What needs to be done to create organizations that are truly fit for the future?


• What should be the critical priorities for tomorrow’s management pioneers?

He makes three salient points before listing 25 “moon shots” for management – “make or break challenges" for innovative managers.

First, the thinking that led to current management model, while revolutionary at the time, has outlived its usefulness. The men who “invented” management during the Industrial Revolution were trying to solve two problems: 1) getting semiskilled employees to perform repetitive activities competently, diligently and efficiently, and 2) coordinating those efforts to produce complex goods and services. “In a nutshell, the problems were efficiency and scale, and the solution was bureaucracy,” Hamel writes.

Second, the Renegade Brigade emphasizes that the essentials for businesses survival today are “outside the performance envelope of today’s bureaucracy-infused management practices.” Management should be cultivating “righteous indignation” about the status quo, not working to repress dissatisfaction with it.

Third, because the current management model is “an integrated whole that can’t be easily broken into pieces . . . many of the challenges overlap.” Hamel says. The Top 10 of the Brigade's priorities:

1. Ensure that the work of management serves a higher purpose.

2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems.

3. Reconstruct management’s philosophical foundation.

4. Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy.

5. Reduce fear and increase trust.

6. Reinvent the means of control.

7. Redefine the work of leadership.

8. Expand and exploit diversity.

9. Reinvent strategy making as an emergent process.

10.De-structure and disaggregate the organization.

The concepts being touted in this article are a tight fit with our consulting philosophies, and message of Authentic Conversations. We can’t help but be delighted that the Renegade Brigade, many of whom also have long been preaching this gospel, has taken up the flag in such a prominent forum.

Just listen to the news and look around you: We are seeing the bureaucratic, self-serving management model crumbling around us. What is happening comes as a result of the way we have managed our enterprises -- and all of us have participated.

Out of the ashes rose the Phoenix. The Brigade is leading the way, and we would love to see s legion of leaders lining up behind them.

JAMIE

HOW TO READ A CLIENT'S MIND

An associate and friend recently forwarded us a “Management Tip of the Day” from the Institute of Management Consultants.  It contains advice to ensure that client and consultant are on the same page by finding out “what is going on inside (clients’) heads.”

The given recommendation is cloaked in manipulative techniques. It suggests consultants ask themselves questions such as:

• “What do I want (clients) to think or feel as a result of this upcoming issue or event?”


• “Am I trying to get them to change the way they think or feel about something?”


• “Will my approach leave them in the desired thinking and feeling frame of mind?”

 

And my personal favorite:

• “Is where their head is right now conducive to my shor-t or longer-term objectives and is this the right time to inform them of a specific fact or recommend a specific course of action?" [emphasis mine]

 

The email also recommends that consultants form a habit of asking themselves questions like these so they don’t get stuck presenting “just the facts” and forget they are trying to influence their audience.

Influence is the most important tool consultants have, but how they use it is important. The advice from IMC, however well-intended, almost to a word conforms to the definition of “manipulation” we use in our book: At attempt to get someone to think or feel or behave in a certain way without revealing that you are trying to do so. This goes on so frequently in our culture that we often don't even see the manipulation at work.

People choose how they think, feel and act – those things are outside another’s control. You can’t make me feel bad or good, happy or angry -- unless I let you. If you shape my point of view, it’s because I have allowed you to do it. If you get the response you’re looking for from me, it’s because I made a choice to do things your way. 

Our advice on how to find out what is going on inside a client’s head? Ask them directly. An authentic conversation is a more honest and effective way to get the information your looking for.

“We’ve agreed on the activities we’re going to pursue, and I think we both understand what remains to be done. But I’d like to get clarity about your thinking as we work together. What feelings do you have about what is happening?”

If you want to influence someone else, being direct about your intentions is also far more honest – and powerful.

“I have some strong feelings about our work, and I’d like for us to be on the same page here. I think I can build a pretty good case to help influence you to see things the way I do. Are you willing to have that conversation with me?”

The caveat, of course, is to remember you've invited your client to a conversation, which means that listening is as important as delivering your message.

A direct approach might not take you directly inside the client's head, but neither does manipulation. And a direct approach will at least allow you to build a relationship that everyone can believe in.

THE 500 PERCENT MARKUP ON A $40 MISTAKE

A recent, exceedingly frustrating shopping experience underscores our conviction that the employees with the most customer contact need the knowledge, resources and decision-making authority to make decisions that serve the business. If they don't have them, we guarantee it is having a negative effect on quality, profitability, cycle time and unique response.

We originally wrote a detailed account of our ordeal, but it was so tedious and mind-numbing that we deleted it. The details aren’t as important as the fact that most people have similar experiences all the time.

Here are highlights:



We ordered a coffeemaker using American Express points in late November. We selected Home Depot from among three vendors offered on the AmEx site because it was a well-known national brand.

Home Depot sent us the wrong coffeepot twice, and we shipped it back — twice.

Over the next few weeks, we spent nearly seven hours with Home Depot call center employees and/or their supervisors trying to get the right coffeemaker delivered. At times we were left on hold for up to 20 minutes.

Eventually, Maren discovered a discrepancy between the model number on the American Express site and Home Depot’s: it was off by one letter.

The coffeepot we wanted was actually $99.99, but because of that discrepancy, twice we’d been sent one that sold for $59.99.

We got American Express involved, and on the first phone call, the customer service rep told us that since we had shipped the second coffee pot back, she would restore our points and we could start over.

In the meantime, a second-level supervisor called us back and after we repeated our saga for the umpteenth time, she said she would send us the coffeepot we wanted – at no charge to us – and ship it express. It took six weeks to satisfy our order even though the product was in stock.

By our calculations, a $40 mistake that could have been quickly resolved with one phone call ended up costing Home Depot: 

• Shipping costs for three regular deliveries and one express delivery


• More than six hours of employee time (minimum of $100 based on online salary estimators.)


• $99 for coffee pot we were finally sent at no charge.


• Additional time for the employees working in the warehouse, accounting and other related departments.


• Opportunity costs -- employees dealing with us could not be serving other customers, which increased wait time in the system.


• Serious erosion of customer loyalty and goodwill

 

Home Depot spent at least $500 – for a $40 mistake.

This was just one experience. Imaging this scenario being repeated thousands of times a day to varying degrees!

We worked with one client, for instance, that had four call centers with about 1,500 employees at each center. Assume each of the 6,000 employees handle an average of at least 100 calls a day – that means 60,000 frontline customer contacts every day.

Do that math for a year. That is 15.6 million customer contacts! How much influence do you think they have on the customer experience?

Even if only two or three percent of the phone calls were as costly as ours (some would be more, some would be less), that would be a huge hit to the bottom line. Not to mention that customers who weren’t as persistent as we were in getting our problem resolved (or as knowledgeable about how call centers work), might give up in frustration, creating permanent dissatisfaction.

And yet call center employees, the people who deal with thousands of customers a week, are usually treated like children who can’t be trusted to do the right thing.

These employees typically earn low wages, are given strict protocols to follow, have no decision-making authority and lack a clear understanding of how what they do contributes to business success. We have been in call centers where employees are required to ask permission to use the bathroom! No wonder call centers are characterized by very high employee turnover.

Imagine if front-line employees had the same knowledge and decision-making authority as second-level supervisors, and understood how what they did contributed to the success of the whole. They could grant exceptions to satisfy a customer on the first phone call, in a few minutes.

Do they have to understand the difference between fixing a $40 mistake and a $500 mistake? Of course. Will there be people who mess up? Of course. But doesn’t it make more sense to create policies for the 95 percent of employees who show up everyday wanting to do a good job, instead the 5 percent who can’t be trusted? Deal with issues of accountability as they occur and treat mistakes as a learning experiences.